Prologue
The carefree years of frolicking in the fields will soon come to an abrupt end for our yearlings, Juno, Elf and Wilson. One scary day, a trailer will pull up just outside their stalls and they will be herded inside, grumbling and unhappy, to be transported across town to the training facility where they will spend the next few months learning to be racehorses.
First, they will be circled in both directions in their stalls and, later, a round pen. Soon, a saddle will be added, and, eventually, a rider. In a month’s time, they will be going to the training track. As time passes, they will pick up the pace, learn to gallop inside and outside another horse, then between horses. They will learn to change leads at specific times. After about three months, they will be asked for a two-minute-lick pace (travelling each eighth of a mile in fifteen seconds) for a distance of two furlongs, then three. When this is accomplished satisfactorily a few times, they will move on to “working” a quarter mile, then three-eighths. This is your first opportunity to assess the horse’s speed but you must be careful not to discern “fool’s gold.” A lot of people, some with fast stopwatches, are prone to self-deception at this stage. You must be realistic about your animals. And even if you have a horse working three-eighths of a mile in thirty-six seconds at the farm, there’s a long way to go. Unless you’re a Quarter Horse, nobody wins races at three-eighths of a mile. When they get to the track, the horses will work a half-mile, then five-eighths, perhaps longer before they run. Even then, good work horses do not always convert their promise in the morning to the racetrack in the afternoon, where they find themselves banging around the track at breakneck speeds with a bunch of like-minded brutes.
We visit them at least once a week and marvel at their progress. We get excited when some empty-headed rider tells us how good they are (you’d think we’d learn). After about 120 days of this, barring no impediments, they will go to Calder, the racetrack in Miami where they will compete, usually within six weeks of arrival. So keep your fingers crossed for Juno, Elf and Wilson. There are many perils to be conquered or avoided between the starting gate and the finish. A horse has to be talented—and brave—to make it. Our hopes hang in the balance.
The Last Time I Saw Janis
Somebody asked me the other day if I ever ran into Janis again after she became famous. Yes….once. In the summer of 1969, as the Subterranean Circus continued to thrive, some of our employees were getting excited about the first Atlanta Pop Festival, a three-day rock extravaganza featuring a mind-boggling array of talent. We should rent a booth, they advised, and sell stuff up there to the kajillions of concertgoers. Nobody would be in Gainesville anyway. So we did.
I was not at Woodstock, which is just as well, because this place was overwhelming enough. The traffic was incomprehensible. If you somehow got in, you were not getting out without waiting through frustrating hours of immobility. Dick North and Pamme Brewer went with me, plus a couple of underlings to man the sales tent. I don’t remember the exact number of attendees, but 100,000 was probably a gross understatement. Real drugs were rampant and fake drugs even more so. Medical tents were set up to attend to heat or overdose victims and they stayed quite busy. The music was non-stop, loud and often great. The weather remained good.
Eventually, Dick North came up to me. “Janis is back there,” he said, pointing to the security area behind the stage. “Are you going to try to see her?”
I pondered the problem. The security area was bound by a Very High Fence and patrolled by Very Mean Bikers. Nonetheless, the perimeter was considerable, and if you chose the right location at the right time, there weren’t enough security personnel to nab you. I picked out a location near the stage, where security was absorbed by the performers, and jumped over. Now where the hell was Janis?
I saw her walking by herself and headed in my general direction. I greeted her with the classic question uttered by all past acquaintances when encountering now-famous people: “Hi Janis—remember me?”
She squinted the suspicious squint of the performer who more often than not does not remember you and doesn’t want to, then broke into a big smile and came running up. She actually picked me up off the ground and swung me in a small arc. “Killeen, you old motherf**er! What are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
“Well, I came to see you. And I had to climb a Very High Fence, guarded by Very Mean Bikers.”
“Good thing they didn’t catch you. They’re even meaner than you think.”
“Well, do you remember all your discussions back in Austin with Powell and Lannie about who would ‘make it’? I guess it’s fair to say you made it.”
“Shit, Killeen—I’m a f**king corporation! The only thing that’s scary is that this business picks you up and spits you out like nobody’s business. So I’m gonna get what I can while I can before they boot me out. Hey, do you ever see any of the old Austin crowd?”
“Well, Lieuen moved to Tallahassee for awhile. And Pat Brown came through Gainesville, spent a few days.”
“I saw Shelton last year. He’s still the same, turned into a big comic-book honcho. I’m gonna get him to draw an album cover. Gotta take care of the old pals. Hey, you should come out with us tonight—we’re going to Atlanta to raise hell.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got a booth back there. And I came up here with someone.”
“You’ve always got a girlfriend, Killeen.”
“Well listen, Janis, I just wanted to see you and tell you how happy I was for your success.”
“Aw shucks, man. I’m just a little old hippy girl from Port Arthur,” she said, walking off across the field. Then she stopped, turned and winked. “World-famous, though!” And she cackled off into the distance.
What I’ve Learned: (2) Stay Away From Crazy People
When I was in the first-grade, we had a little kid named Timmy Cunningham in the class who couldn’t say still. Timmy was always catching grief from the nuns because he seemed physically incapable of sitting down and following instructions.
“Timothy Cunningham!” roared Sister Joseph Ambrose, “Do not stand on your seat!” Or run through the classroom. Or talk indiscriminately in the middle of a lesson. Or throw your crayons at your neighbor.
They threatened Timmy with dire consequences. They called in Timmy’s parents. They stood Timmy in the corner. They sent Timmy to Sister Superior’s office. All for naught. They couldn’t get Timmy to calm down. One day, in the midst of hollering and great consternation, Timmy climbed up on a windowsill, bid everyone a fond adieu and jumped out the window. Okay, it was only on the first floor, but still. We never saw Timmy anymore after that. I asked my mother about it. “Timmy is crazy,” she said. Oh. Crazy. What’s that?
There was a woman in our neighborhood named Grace Dineen. As you passed her house on Dorchester Street, you could often hear her playing the piano and beautifully so. At one time, she had been a piano teacher. You could also look up at her front windows and see signs posted therein written in various colors of crayon.
“Beware—bitches and doos!” one of them said. I wasn’t about to utter any questions of my mother that required me to say the word “bitches” but I thought “doos” might be alright.
“Ma—what’s a doo?” I asked. “Grace Dineen says we should beware.”
“Grace Dineen is crazy,” my mother told me.
“Like Timmy Cunningham?”
“No….worse.”
Okay then, there were different degrees of crazy. As bad as Timmy was, he didn’t dress in rags, wear a paper hat or keep a hundred cats, like Grace Dineen did. It seems that the number of cats owned has a direct relationship to the degree of craziness exhibited. Anyway, my mother had instructions for me regarding all this. “Stay away from crazy people,” she said. “Something bad could happen to you.” And there is absolutely no doubt I could have saved myself a lot of aggravation if I had followed this sage advice.
When I was in college, I foolishly decided to pledge a fraternity. Nobody sane can live in a dorm forever, right? The president of this fraternity was a sadist named Ernie Walker, who proved to my satisfaction that a crazy person can and did get elected to a position of significance. Among other things Ernie did to the pledge class, one night he and a half-dozen other members overpowered three of us, wrapped blankets around us, drove us several miles into the country and dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. It was about ten o’clock at night.
I kept reassuring myself (and the others, who remained unconvinced) that nobody would leave us out in such a potentially dangerous situation all night. We were supposed to find our ways back, but had little to go on. We were marooned on a country road with no buildings and no idea what direction to go in. We finally discovered a darkened farmhouse (about midnight) and foolishly crept in, hoping for help. The first thing I saw was a shotgun leaning against the kitchen wall. The farmer and his wife were sleeping in the adjacent bedroom. We got the hell out of there and reconsidered entering future farmhouses. Dogs barked at us, straining at their fences as we made our ways down the road, following a faint glow in the sky. Eventually, we went to sleep in a wheat field. The farmer found us the next day and offered us a ride back to town for a dollar. Best dollar I ever spent. Next time I spoke to my mother I told her she was right.
“About what?” she asked.
“Crazy people,” I told her.
“Oh,” she said.
One night, I came home from the Circus at about 10 p.m. I usually left the house door unlocked since it was right next door to the business and I went back and forth. When I walked into the house, I saw a shabby-looking character sitting in my recliner watching television. My 9-year-old stepson, Danny, was asleep on the floor and our 100-pound Doberman, Baron, was lying on top of him, staring fixedly at the intruder. Baron was wired tight and looked like he might leap on the guy at any moment.
I started hollering at the guy, asked him what the hell he was doing there and told him to get out forthwith.
“Well, I woulda left already he said, except for one thing,” he whined.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Him,” he said, nodding at Baron, afraid even to move his arm enough to point. About then, Danny woke up. “What’s going on?” he wanted to know. I dragged the guy, who was afraid to move, up from the chair and out the door.
“Thanks, man” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to get out of there alive.”
I went back inside. Danny was astounded. He looked to me for guidance.
“Stay away from crazy people,” I told him. “Something bad could happen to you.”
The Craziest Person Of All
Robert Kovalczek was a regular customer at the Subterranean Circus. He came in all the time, was friendly and spent a good bit of money. Robert had been in Viet Nam and had not tolerated it well. He was a heavy drinker after having been a heavy coke user after having been a heavy meth head. Robert needed one crutch or another to make it through life. He had reached a point where, when his government check rolled in, he just took it over and gave it to Dan Ianarelli at Dan’s Beverages to take care of his bill. Then he decided to stop drinking. Just like that. This is not something most people can do. Shortly after embarking on this course, he came into the store a little on edge.
“Bill,” he said, “I’ve got all kinds of creatures in my house. They’re climbing up the walls and coming out of the floor.”
“Richard, you’ve got DT’s. You need to go to a clinic.”
“No, I’m not imagining it—they’re really there.”
“Have you ever seen them before—when you were drinking?”
“Well, no.”
Richard went home and came back the next day. The creatures were still there, but not so bad, he said. But even worse, people were trying to break into his house. I knew this wasn’t the case, he was just paranoid. He went home and came back the next day.
“Bill, I need you to come out to my house. There are footprints outside my bathroom window and there’s paint off the wall where they’ve tried to pry the window open. I’m not kidding, somebody’s trying to get in.”
I foolishly agreed to go to Robert’s house with him to assay the situation. I figured I’d be able to explain to him what was going on, which I expected to be nothing, and put him more at ease. What a dumb idea. There’s no reasoning with crazy people.
I looked at the ground outside his bathroom window. There were no footprints. I looked at the paint. It had worn off long ago. I went inside the house to find Richard. I turned a corner to find him standing there holding a shotgun on me.
“There are people who are trying to get me,” Richard spit out, angrily. “And I think you’re one of them!”
This was a definite ‘oh-oh’ moment, but I was as mad as I was worried. I decided valor was the better part of discretion.
“I can’t believe you, Richard,” I said, angrily, moving toward him. “I’m the only person you could find who would come out here to help you and this is how you treat me? Give me that gun,” I demanded, taking it from him, complaining all the while of this great breach of friendship. I took the thing outside and locked it in the trunk of my car, only then reflecting on the possibilities of a different outcome.
“I’m sorry,” Richard Kovalczek said.
“It’s just as much my fault, Richard,” I told him. “I didn’t listen when my mother warned me there’d be days like this.”
